Cubs' Superstitious, Good-Luck Cake Returned After Team Was Swept By Brewers

(CBS) Much was made of the Cubs front office's superstitious habit of eating cake during the team's run to a championship in 2016. After the consumption of it coincided with the Cubs' win in Game 5 of the World Series after they trailed the series 3-1, president of baseball operations Theo Epstein went so far as to have the specific cake shipped to Cleveland for Game 6 and Game 7 from the nearest Levy's catering facility, which was a couple hours away in Pittsburgh.

It worked. And while curse talk and superstition has taken a back seat after the Cubs broke their long drought, the front office believes the magic of the cake lives on, available in times of need.

So Tuesday, the Cubs front office called upon it after being swept by the Brewers and seeing their NL Central lead diminish to two games.

"That's something a lot of guys were focused on," general manager Jed Hoyer said on the Spiegel and Parkins Show on 670 The Score on Thursday morning. "The cake made an appearance Tuesday night again. Over the weekend ... we couldn't even get a guy on base.

"We weren't going to waste a cake on the weekend, we couldn't even get guys in scoring position. But we were desperate on Tuesday night, and Scott Harris always kicks that off and eats far too many calories. Yeah, it was a part of Tuesday and because of Tuesday, it became a part of (Wednesday).

"I don't love eating a big piece of cake and ice cream at 10 o'clock at night, but if it does help, I suppose I have to do it."

While acknowledging the recent reliance on the lucky cake, Hoyer also insists he's scaled back his superstitious habits.

"I've tried really hard to rid that stuff from my life," Hoyer said. "Because I've had different moments of my career where you wind up with so many different superstitions that you almost feel paralyzed. Where am I going to get coffee? Where am I going to get breakfast? Where am I going to get lunch? What am I wearing? And you realize, No. 1, that Kris Bryant doesn't care what I wear, right? It's pretty irrelevant. And No. 2, you just realize your whole day is focused on that kind of stuff. So I have done a really good job of ridding that, almost a sort of self-rehab for a superstitious person. I've done a good job of it. I still have a couple things I struggle with when we're going well that I find myself doing. But all in all, I'm in a much better place than I was with the Red Sox."